Pope Leo XVI is the first Augustinian pope and the second Roman pontiff – after Pope Francis – from the Americas. Source: Vatican News.
Unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, however, the 69-year-old Robert Francis Prevost is from the northern part of the continent, though he spent many years as a missionary in Peru before being elected head of the Augustinians for two consecutive terms.
He was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, to Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian descent, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish descent. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph.
He spent his childhood and adolescence with his family and studied first at the Minor Seminary of the Augustinian Fathers and then at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where in 1977 he earned a Degree in Mathematics and also studied Philosophy.
On September 1 of the same year, he entered the novitiate of the Order of St Augustine in St Louis and made his first profession on September 2, 1978. On August 29, 1981, he made his solemn vows.
The future pontiff received his theological education at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. At the age of 27, he was sent by his superiors to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum).
In Rome, he was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College of St Monica. Prevost obtained his licentiate in 1984 and the following year, while preparing his doctoral thesis, was sent to the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (1985–1986).
In 1988, he joined the mission in Trujillo, also in Peru, as director of the joint formation project for Augustinian candidates from the vicariates of Chulucanas, Iquitos, and Apurímac.
In 1999, he was elected Provincial Prior of the Augustinian Province of “Mother of Good Counsel” in Chicago, and two and a half years later, the ordinary General Chapter of the Order of St Augustine elected him as Prior General, confirming him in 2007 for a second term.
In October 2013, he returned to his Augustinian Province in Chicago until Pope Francis appointed him on November 3, 2014, as Apostolic Administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo. His episcopal ordination was on December 12, 2014. He was appointed Bishop of Chiclayo on September 26, 2015.
On January 30, 2023, the Pope called him to Rome as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, promoting him to the rank of Archbishop. He was created a cardinal on September 30, 2023.
FULL STORY
Biography of Robert Francis Prevost, Pope Leo XIV (Vatican News)
